| Lausanne Connecting Point - September 2006 |
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NO TRANSLATION AVAILABLE In This Issue:
More than fifty percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas. Urban ministry offers many challenges but also many opportunities to introduce people to Jesus Christ. This month’s focus on urban evangelism seeks to inform and equip Christians to better reach city-dwellers:
Other articles:
We welcome your questions or comments about Lausanne World Pulse. Send your emails to 이 이메일 주소는 스팸머로부터 보호됩니다. 보시려면 자바스크립트를 활성화 하십시요 . For more information on submitting an article, please visit http://www.lausanneworldpulse.com/submit.php. Thank you for telling other people about www.LausanneWorldPulse.com! Please also consider posting a link on your website to Lausanne World Pulse. The October issue of Lausanne World Pulse will emphasize reaching oral cultures with the gospel. If you know of individuals working in or interested in this area, we encourage you to forward this email on to them. Later this month, some 500 younger Christian leaders, between the ages of 25 and 35 from more than 100 countries, will gather in Malaysia for the Lausanne Younger Leaders Gathering (YLG-06). YLG-06 is organized by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (www.lausanne.org).
To keep you up to date about the topics being discussed at gathering, Lausanne will be sending regular email updates and posting reports at www.lausanne.org starting 24 September. Various participants will also be sharing their reflections during the YLG-06 on the YLG Blog. Check daily for a firsthand perspective on the YLG. Please be praying with us for this gathering, for the young leaders and mentors who will participate. Spreading the Holistic Gospel of Christ to All Nations In the week of 17-21 July, over 2,600 participants coming from 37 countries/regions gathered in Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China for the 7th CCOWE, a pentennial mission conference of Chinese churches. Welcome Dinner & Opening Ceremony
Bible Study . . . More . . . Pearl Anniversary Declaration from CCOWE By Bernd Oettinghaus
The evangelistic outreaches in not only the twelve World Cup host cities but also many other cities in Germany were blessed to see people coming to Christ – for example, 100 alone in Frankfurt. Over 4,000 churches (1200 kickoff-associated, 700 Catholic and 2200 Lutheran state churches) had live transmissions of games for public viewing. The Christians were excited about the new contact to unchurched people that these public viewings generated. A Christian sports program produced solely for this occasion gave the viewers food for thought about faith before every match involving Germany, as well as the playoffs and final match. Cooperation with international churches in Germany also got a boost. Even the secular media reported positively on the Christian outreaches, something that seldom happens in our country. There was often astonishment about and gratitude for the Christians' involvement in the cities. Just one example: for four weeks the Evangelical Alliance sponsored a stage with evangelistic music and talk directly in front of the main train station. Right after the World Cup, local media called for this stage to be made permanent, marveling at the friendly atmosphere filling what was usually an ugly area and making it an inviting entranceway to the city. Just like in Acts 2, the Christians were: ". . . enjoying the favor of all the people . . .” There were 24-7 prayer rooms and intense intercession groups in many towns and cities. Prayer requests from all across the country were sent to a prayer camp in Bad Blankenburg, the German headquarters of the Evangelical Alliance, during the entire World Cup. For the first time, Christians from widely varying religious traditions prayed together for an extended time during a mega-event – for their country and for various evangelistic outreaches. Many prayer networks all over the world and people from all over the world who had come to Germany included them in and supported them with their prayers. God heard His children's prayers, and brought them great joy. God's protection from hooligans' excessive violence or terrorist attacks was not just magnificent, it was a miracle: considering the sheer number of fans, hundreds of thousands of whom – including outside the stadiums – watched the matches and peacefully celebrated together. Instead of the violent fights that had been predicted, fans of opposing teams hugged each other and celebrated together, whether they were Iranians and Portuguese or Germans and Britons, etc. People enjoyed just being together. Two small violent clashes remained limited in scope and were quickly brought under control by the police. It was exactly at these two critical points that those praying at the prayer camp strongly experienced the leading of the Holy Spirit and prayed – without any external knowledge – against exactly what was happening. Ex. 17:10 ff. in our times! But the most impressive thing was that the Lord brought healing to the Germans' wounded souls as regards their national identity. To an extent never before seen, people rejoiced in their own nation, waved flags and sang the national anthem, all without unhealthy shame and with no trace of the unhealthy pride of which other countries could justifiably have been afraid. Far from being afraid, the international media rejoiced with and encouraged the German people. Secular newspapers printed personal accounts of people who had a German flag in their hands and sang the German national anthem with tears in their eyes for the first time since the rule of the Nazis. The fact that God made history is still visible in the streets and on cars and houses. Some of the flags are still flying or hanging; this is unprecedented. One newspaper headline read: "Someone has awakened us with a kiss." Yes, the Spirit of God is doing a new thing in our country. It was the foreigners who noticed it first and made it possible; it is they who are encouraging us – including us German Christians – to bless the world with our talents and take on international responsibilities. God also gave our country a willingness to be hospitable and an enjoyment of our guests from many different countries, something which is not typical of Germans. This brought healing to many and great joy for the guests, who had no idea how friendly and emotional Germans can be. Many international newspapers and magazines wrote over and over that they had been forced to change their stereotype of Germany. The fact that we Germans could celebrate our third-place finish as if it were a victory – when our perfectionism usually drags us down into criticism and frustration – is proof positive that something has changed. That it could happen in the space of four weeks is proof that it could only have been God's work. Even Franz Beckenbauer (a former football great and prominent figure in German football), who actually believes in reincarnation and has nothing to do with churches, when asked on a nationally televised show after the final match how it could be that everything went so well during the World Cup, replied: "I guess we just have to thank the good Lord, too." May God strengthen and increase the change that has started here and see to it that we – including us Christians – don't fall back into the valley of collective complaining, but share our joy in our God, which is much stronger than the joy that comes from sports or events, with the people outside the walls of our churches and stop being ashamed of the Gospel. God used people from many nations (more than 4,000 short-term missionaries) to help us evangelize during this world event. And He used many more to stand in the gap for our country and to take the garment of shame off of our people so that we can rejoice in our country – as other people rejoice in theirs – without feeling guilty. This was also an emotional release for an otherwise very reserved society, freeing people to just feel happy. If the Christians who live in Germany, regardless of what culture or denomination they come from, will continue to allow God's joy to motivate them to actively share the Gospel in unity in word and deed, using their God-given talents and giftings, what God began during the World Cup will be able to continue to grow and thrive. From Dr. Doug Pennoyer, EMS President
Plenary sessions, seminars and missiological papers will focus on this critical 21st Century missions topic. For additional information see: http://www.ifmamissions.org/pdfs/IFMA-EMS_Schedule_52306.pdf. The Evangelical Missiological Society will publish the papers with William Carey Library (Keith Eitel and Eddie Pate, editors) as part of the EMS Series. Peoples of the Buddhist World CD-ROM
This extensively-researched and beautiful prayer guide was designed for Christians, educators, churches and missionaries concerned with better understanding and praying for the world’s 700 million Buddhist adherents. The Peoples of the Buddhist World CD-ROM contains over 500 pages, 238 people group profiles, hundreds of color photographs, dozens of maps, twelve articles, and helpful indexes and cross-references – all hyperlinked for fast access. The search features quickly find any word or phrase of interest. Permission is given for the CD-ROM’s profiles, articles, photographs and maps to be printed or used in custom documents and presentations. The result of ground-breaking research led by Paul Hattaway, GMI provided research, map-making, graphics, and technical production skills, producing a reference CD-ROM that is informative, easy to use and visually engaging. The CD-ROM is in Adobe Acrobat format and runs on Windows and Macintosh. It was co-published by Piquant Editions in England. More information on purchasing the CD-ROM is available at www.gmi.org/Buddhist. GMI has also produced the Operation World and The World of Islam CD-ROMS that are widely used in the international Christian community. Founded in 1983, GMI serves evangelical mission leaders by producing and presenting world-class research that fuels emerging mission movements and leaders. By Justin Long It’s pretty simple, really. The problem, succinctly: In 1900, 56% of 1.6 billion people were unevangelized, which equaled 879 million people, with some 15,000 cross-cultural missionaries (of all traditions) working among them. A century later, in 2000, 26% of 6.0 billion people were unevangelized, which equaled 1.6 billion people, but just 10,000 missionaries were working among them. Thus: The percentage of the world that is unreached declined (56% to 26%) but due to population growth the total number of people who are unreached actually doubled (879 million to 1.6 billion). Meanwhile, the number of missionaries working amongst the unreached declined (15,000 to 10,000—see the July 2006 issue of Momentum for a full discussion.) If the task to evangelize the world could not be completed in 1900 by 15,000 workers, clearly 10,000 workers in the midst of a much more populous world will not finish the task. Clearly we need more. How many more? It’s impossible to estimate exactly, but let’s assume one trained and equipped missionary team (each composed of multiple individuals) can impact 100,000 people. The table below shows us we would need about 43,000 such teams. The actual number may be greater depending on the need for different teams based on languages and locations to be addressed, but this, I feel, is the barest minimum needed. How can we go about mobilizing these 43,000 teams? With the end goal in mind, let’s break the task up by continent. The charts give numbers both for missionaries of all tradition (columns starting with “m,” from the World Christian Encyclopedia) and for evangelical groups (columns starting with “e”, from Operation World). “AC” is the number of affiliated Christians (of all traditions, WCE); “Ev” is the number of evangelicals, approximated from Protestants and Independents in Operation World). Let’s look at a goal of 1 missionary per 2,000 Christians (suggested in World Christian Trends). The current ratio is shown in the columns ‘m:AC’ (missionaries per affiliated Christian) and ‘eS:Ev’ (evangelical missionaries per evangelical believer). The ratio worldwide is about 1:5,000—over twice the goal. The “S” columns (mS and eS) are the number of missionaries currently sent (all traditions and evangelicals, respectively). The “T” columns are the number that would be sent if the 1:2000 goal was reached. The “N” columns give the number of workers that we need to mobilize in order to reach that goal. Thus, if we indeed mobilized 1:2,000 evangelical believers, we would nearly quadruple the missionary force to roughly 400,000 workers! (Remember these numbers are in thousands.) This is likely enough to fill out 43,000 missionary teams. Thus Africa needs to mobilize 104,000 teams; Asia, 120,000 teams; Europe, 48,000 teams; Latin America, 51,000 teams; North America, 74,000 teams; and the Pacific, 5,000 teams. Remember, we’re not talking about “sending national missionaries” but rather “global prayer, global recruitment, global funding, global care.” It’s not “North Americans and Europeans funding Africans and Asians to bring the gospel to some of those who have never heard” but literally “the whole church bringing the whole gospel to the whole world.” I think this represents one of the greatest challenges before us. Worker mobilization into the unreached world is one of the most pressing tasks. How is required to achieve this? I have been thinking and writing about this need for nearly a decade now. I have recently had some experience of the challenges, failures, and success of this with the Ethne06 conference. Participants came from everywhere in the world, but even more interestingly, funding came from all over the world too. I know it is possible, but I know it is not without difficulty. I have the beginnings of an idea or two, but there’s a question to be answered: Is anyone else interested in tackling this problem? We have a lot of mobilizers, networks, and initiatives. But are we interested not in mobilizing but in mobilizing enough? Every major plan for world evangelization has foundered largely on this rock: there are insufficient workers to bring the Gospel to the least-reached. We will need a significant, sustained, passionate, clear effort if we are to achieve this goal. This is why I have the chat room open, and what the next issue (and perhaps next several issues) of Momentum will be focusing on. Who wants to talk about this? Who wants to act on this? Come chat at http://www.momentum-mag.org/chat.htm. By Glenda Weldon, Intercessory Working Group Chair “My heart is steadfast, O God; I will sing and make music with all my soul. Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth.” Psalms 108:15 We come before the Lord with hearts full of gratitude, praise and love to worship him for he is indeed the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He has called us all to be part of what he is doing to bring the Gospel to people of every tongue tribe and nation. Our hearts resonate with the Psalmist in his cry to see the glory of our God over all the earth as men and women everywhere bow before him as their Lord and Saviour. This month is a very significant time for the future of the ministry of Lausanne as the present and future leaders meet together at the Younger Leaders Gathering to be inspired, equipped and empowered in fresh ways to “go into all the world and make disciples.” LCWE Administration Committee Younger Leaders Gathering Please Pray For:
Senior Associate for Women We thank the Lord for the years of faithful and significant ministry that Robyn Claydon has had in this role as she has ministered to and mentored women around the world. Robyn will continue as Senior Advisor in this ministry. Joni Eareckson Tada - Senior Associate for Disability Concerns Please Pray that pro-life advocates to the UN Convention will have courage to insist on changes in the document so that the right to life of disabled persons around the world will be safeguarded. Religious and Non-religious Spirituality in the Post Modern World
Intercession Working Group
Global Transformational Prayer Summit – “Telling God’s Story” Please pray that the 120 participants will have “ears to hear what the Lord is saying and eyes to see what he is doing” as they: Evangelisation of Children
Latin America
Eastern Europe
Bulgaria
Croatia Macedonia Pray for peace to change the atmosphere of ethnic hatred between Serbs and Croats that has hindered the spread of evangelism in some parts of Macedonia. “However, the evangelical church is growing” reports the Every Home For Christ (EHC) team. Please Pray For:
Lithuania CENTRAL NATIONS Keep praying for the various changes in the Polish legislation that it will foster transparency and public accountability. Romania
RUSSIAN LANGUAGE NATIONS Belarus Russia
Ukraine SILK ROAD NATIONS—EURASIA Please Pray:
Azerbaijan
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Turkmenistan Registration in Turkmenistan can be extremely difficult, and repressive government interference often cripples the activities of registered religious communities. Expecting continued police harassment, the Turkmen congregation appealed to fellow Christians around the world to pray for them. "We are now being investigated. We want prayer desperately." |
Upon arrival, participants were given a very warm welcome from the Macau SAR government, who invited all participants as well as the 600 plus volunteers of Macau to enjoy a splendid welcome dinner at the latest local attraction - Macau Fisherman's Wharf. After a great Chinese banquet as well as traditional Chinese and Portuguese performances, Dr. Philemon Choi (Honorary General Secretary of "Breakthrough" [Hong Kong]) and Dr. L. F. Mak (a seasoned bi-vocational missionary) shared on "The Renewal of Mission of Worldwide Chinese Churches." The speakers emphasized the Triune God has His message for every generation to show His deed, and thus Chinese churches should attentively observe this generation and renew our mission when deemed necessary. Moreover, they also reminded participants that cross-generational link and cooperation are two crucial factors in world mission which merit the immediate attention of worldwide Chinese churches.
At the Opening Ceremony on 18 July , Hon. CE Mr. Edmund Ho (Chief Executive, Macau SAR), Hon. Dr. Fernando S. O. Chui (Secretary of Social Affairs and Culture, Macau SAR), Rev. Philip Teng (Honorary Chairman of CCCOWE Board of Directors), Rev. Hay-chun Maak (Honorary Chairman of CCCOWE Board of Directors), Rev. Yam-man Lam (Chairman of Christian Sheun Tao Church Hong Kong & Macau District Union Association), Rev. Timothy Lau (Chairman of CCCOWE Board of Directors), and Rev. John Kao (Appointed Director of CCCOWE Board of Directors) laid their hands on the induction posts, a huge ball-shaped screen rose up slowly, initiating the 7th CCOWE as well as signifying our hope for the evangelization of the whole world.
Other than the main theme, the Congress had four daily sub-themes, namely Renewal of Life, Renewal of Society, Renewal of Culture, and Renewal of All Nations. Each morning there was worship, followed by Bible study. Rev. James Cheung (Senior Pastor of Kowloon City Baptist Church, Hong Kong) talked about our Lord's teaching on renewal of life in the Four Gospels. Rev. Rick Warren (Founder of Saddleback Church, Orange County, USA) stated apart from God's Word and God's promise, everything can be expired, and thus "renewal" is an essential part of our life. Rev. Timothy Wu (Academic Dean of China Evangelical Seminary, Taipei, Taiwan) emphasized the only way to renew the fallen culture is to turn back and to get close to God. Dr. John Ong (President of Malaysia Baptist Theological Seminary) encouraged participants to follow the footsteps of the Patriarchs, Apostles, Reformation pioneers, and all devoted missionaries to bear faithful Christian witnesses in our time so that the blessed ones could also become blessings to all nations. 
Our warmest thanks to the praying people from so many different nations for their prayer support during the Football (Soccer) World Cup in Germany. God did more than just answer our prayers. He has done "more than we could ask or imagine."
The Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA)/Evangelical Missiological Society (EMS) Annual Conference convenes in Florida, USA at the Orlando Airport Marriot on 28-30 September. The theme will be "Missions in the Context of Violence." 
Global Mapping International (GMI) has announced the release of its newest missions information resource: the Peoples of the Buddhist World CD-ROM. 
